Mind Games

Kantavon Corporation

In the early 22nd century a small technology company appeared on the map. Julian Kantavon was a man born of old Italy. Having lost his arm in an accident as a child he dedicated his life to creating a cybernetic replacement. In his late twenties he created the Kantavon Corporation, a company that specialized in the creation of cybernetic limbs. At the time the technologies were of lower quality, and though the limbs did their job better than their un-animated counter-parts, the idea of installing nano-computers into the brain was not as well liked. Instead the company went with a less effective, but safer method. Using sensors the limbs could function like the missing parts they were made to create, only with slower reflexes and small errors.

Before Julian died he handed the company over to his daughter, Anastasia, who continued to push the company into cybernetic research and development. It was during this time that Anastasia’s husband discovered something amazing.
While traveling and exploring in the sea Anastasia’s husband was pulled down into a small underwater cave off the coast of Somalia. Several days passed with no sign of the man until he suddenly showed up at home, clean shaven and wearing strange robes but sickly ill and pale looking. Richard refused to speak with anyone on his disappearance, and instead went straight to work alone on some sort of project. Shortly after the company bought up all of Somalia and started building facilities. Several months later Richard returned to the world and with him he brought a working cold fusion generator.

After this breakthrough Kantavon Corporation went from a simple cybernetic manufacturing company, to a major technologies manufacture. In a show of power and good will Kantavon launched a meeting to show the world their new Conch Reactor, creating a power plant on the Island of Honolulu large enough to bring next to free power to everyone on all the islands. Something went wrong and the reactor exploded, creating an explosion large enough to be seen from space that destroyed the island and sent tsunami waves crashing into North Americas west coast and most of eastern Japan. Not only was the resulting shock wave a terrible catastrophe, but the explosion had sent high amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. What would follow was a wave of illness and mutated children.

Kantavon Corporation retreated into the background quickly, eventually though, they re-emerged bigger and more powerful than before. Using the money they had they purchased a large chunk of what was Tunisia and started building massive facilities for research and development there as well. Kantavon quickly became a nation of its own, where citizens were either employees or family members of employees of the company. Now Kantavon produces some of the most advanced pieces of technology known to man. The world still blames Kantavon for the resulting spread of mutation and creation of the powerful beings known as psions, but the world generally accepts that the company does far more good then harm.

Background – Kantavon Corp.: You were raised in one of the towns or cities controlled by Kantavon Corporation, or perhaps you were one of their employees, dealing directly with sensitive information and technologies. Whatever your role with the company you have received training in a number of things leaving you with a talent for technology.
This perk gives the hero a -1 cost to Intelligence skills, to a minimum of 1. The hero also receives a -1 step bonus to interaction skills when dealing with other Kantavon personnel or citizens and a 25% discount on the cost of cybernetics. However, because of the focus on computer sciences while dealing with Kantavon some things were neglected. The hero receives a +1 bonus to skill cost in Strength and Constitution based skills.